Randomly Tonia

Mother’s Day is just around the corner and each year around this time I think back to my childhood and all that my mom taught me, maybe without even knowing it.

She tried to teach me how to sew, explaining tension and showing me how to thread a machine, choose a stitch and use a seam ripper (sometimes endlessly).

Though I can barely sew a straight seam, in this she taught me patience through endless arguments with a stubborn ten-year-old, perseverance and the pride that comes with a job well done and a fight hard won (mostly with the bobbin but sometimes with the ten-year-old).

She tried numerous times to teach me to knit, sometimes taking my hands in hers and showing me the stitches.

To this day I cannot knit, but throughout those lessons she taught me the importance of both success and failure and that the difference between the two is in the lessons learned.

I learned that it is okay to have different interests and that to fail (miserably) at one craft (knitting) doesn’t make one a failure, it just means success lies elsewhere.

In all that she did my mom taught me the value of work ethic. She worked long, hard hours and never complained that I can recall. She returned from work, sometimes her second or third job, and would keep on going until she literally was worn out.

I remember waking up in what seemed like the middle of the night to find her vacuuming or cleaning the bathroom. There were mornings I woke up to a pile of clean, folded laundry in my room without any knowledge at the time about how it got there.

At times she worked until she had nothing left and that was when she would come home and just fall asleep on the couch, exhausted from non-stop weeks that ran into more non-stop weeks.

I learned true strength, self-respect and the difference between right and wrong from my mom. She taught me to stand up for myself and those weaker than me.

She taught me the value of compromise and more importantly when to do so – never giving an inch on those things that truly matter. She showed me the errors she had made, so I would learn how to avoid them in the future.

I am one of the blessed ones who can still learn from her every day and though I have yet to figure out how to show her my deep appreciation, I will keep trying because one more thing I learned from my mom was to never give up.

Thank you Mom, for all the lessons you have taught me and all the love you have given me.